NYC REUNION 2011

So who is going to be in NYC the beginning of this December! I'm ordering an immediate class reunion! December 9th....I'll be there from TODAY until Dec. 11th. Let's party and reminisce! You know talk about how much better life is after CMU:)

YAY AUBS!

Thank goodness you posted, silly bean.

Wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll as for me, updates here : http://oliviasyearoff.blogspot.com/

Too much to rewrite on this.

nisha called me out.

THIS IS AUBS.


SOOOOOOOOO people I'm posting! Nisha called me out on her last post so here I go!

annnnnnnd we were sexy.

Phil and I lived in Utah for 1 whole year... actually about 9 months. It was an experience! The mountains in Utah are breathtaking, the people in Utah are nice, and the pay in Utah is atrocious. That I don't miss. We were VERY poor newlyweds and that was a growth experience. Being poor is horrible and I highly un-recommend it on one hand, and on the other, we learned a lot about what's important. We learned a lot about needs vs wants. I worked at a physical therapy office (ie paperwork central) had an awesome boss and nannied for his family half of my hours.  The office part was randomly stressful, lots of calling medical insurance companies, explaining benefits and writing medical records. On the upside if anyone is confused about their insurance coverage I may be able to shed some light!

This is a snazzy photo of Provo Canyon UT, Taken by one of my friendo's

I LOVED living in our first little apt together. I live to decorate and let me tell you when you get married the "nesting instinct" goes full force and you think about making your home a pretty nest all of the time. We lived in a college town surrounded by people our age, lots of dinners and game nights. I miss the friendships I built there. 

I love Phil.

Phil graduated. and see??! MOVES!!

Phil is the best, a good man, a sweet love, kind to everybody and a great dancer (with Michael Jackson moves haha!) so I hope you all can meet him someday. So far he's met Liv, Les, Lizz, James, Collin,  and Caitlin. He loved them all and I think they hit it off? yes? He treats me like I AM the lottery, love someone who makes you remember how much you're worthhhhhhhh (which is A LOT $$$$$$$$$$$).

Totally random picture of Jennifer Lynn Cherest b/c it kept showing up on my photo cue and I thought it would be silly.

SO NOW FOR UPDATES: 
Right now we're back in our home-sweet-town for the summer. 


Phil is working for our brother in Law who is a family law attorney. He is half thai and started out at Yale Drama so he's pretty tight. Phil writes contracts, serves papers, picks up dry cleaning, pretty much anything and everything the boss man wants, and because it's his own private practice and just the two of them there, he's getting some good lawyerly hands on experience.


I am nannying for an 18 mo. old baby boy named Brayden. He is a chunk at 30 lbs (that's a lot for his age. his legs look like they're made of bread dough.) and we go to the park together and then I feed him and then he naps. Pushing his running stroller = I'm gonna get in shape (not to say that I'm running because I'm NOT). I am also training to teach Kindermusik a children's music program for infants through age 7. I LOVE IT! It's so made for me and so far it's a perfect fit, singing+babies+me, I mean come on. I'll be teaching three classes this summer and then expanding to 6-10 classes in the fall. sooooo meant to be.

This is us graduating. Remember??????

So about the FALL. Phil will most likely be going to Golden Gate Law School in SF (!!!!!!!!!!). He's wait listed at William and Mary in VA and Yeshiva University in NYC, so if something happened there, it could mean a change of plans, but I'm kind of feeling like we're supposed to be here with our families. We're trying to decide if we're going to stay in the lovely 'burbs or move to the city, either way we are about to go into the student loan debt of a lifetime but then Phil will be a lawyer and hopefully will do well enough that I can have a million kids (ok not a million...).


Thats our life right now. We run around playing with nieces and nephews and family and we eat a lot of dessert, the simple life.


ps. I just gave my 8 year old niece charlotte a voice lesson. so tender!

I like this picture a lot.

I miss and love you people. xoxoxoxo


I want to do a post on "remember when's" next. I will do that sometime.

New Nisha Asnani music blog

Hey Guys,

I just created this - please read. follow. support when you can.

Love,

me

http://nishaasnani.blogspot.com/

Utes

Aubrey and I got to hang outtttttttttttttttttt in Utah!!! Who is jealous?!?!
I showed her how to use the blog so after she and Philliam are done moving back to CA she promises she will write.
PS. Phil RULES. They are literally like perfection together. It makes me quite happy to see! :)

Had a voice lesson at the University of Utah and I reallllly liked the lady. They also were putting on Dialogues of the Carmelites and dudes. It was OUT of control good. I mean the acting was like they were all drama majors who could sing opera. NUTS. So I def think I'm applying there for next year.

I need to poop sooooooooooooooooooooo............bye!

there it is.

This is for my ghetto people.

Just to gross you out - here's a picture of the last infection I had before surgery. mmmm.

Calling all missing 08'ers!!!

Colin! I know you are reading this! Please tell us what you are up to -facebook says you're engaged!?

Aubrey?! How's married life? and utah - I know you have your own blog but this is a place to share secrets that you wouldn't want your nanny kid's parents reading! Give us all the dirt :)

Chrystallllllllll - please don't slap me. please post.

Bevin - did I tell you I ran in to Erin in New York at Matt Siffert's bday party before I left? How are you? What are you doiiinnnngggg?

Morgana? Ou es tu?

did i miss anyone? joe deren? anyone know what he's up to?

Listen.. caitlyn, olivia, michelle and i have been blogging for a while so we can turn this into a dominated scene - but i'm really excited to hear from the rest of you. so i am CALLING YOU OUT! THAT'S RIGHT! BRING IT!

I forgot a HUGE highlight of my life. This is in Nov(?) I was interviewed on a NY radio station - and my song "Love me anyway" was played :) I was starting to get really sick - which I think you can kinda see.

as promised - the crotch video.

Reunions

Chrystal's there in her red dress

It's been amazing the last two years to be able to see most of you guys and catch up. I can't describe the amazing experiences I've had on Caitlyn's visits to the city (you can imagine how much trouble we got into) or on traveling to Chicago to be with Liv during her surgery (that was an adventure...she couldn't speak!) or Morg and Colin coming to the city, having coffee with Abs, Nish coming to my b-day dinner, and not to mention bonding with Bev as roomies and classmates! Unfortunately, I haven't been able to see Aubs yet. . .but maybe in the near future!! (I hear you're doing awesomely!!)

My most recent encounter was last weekend, when I went up to New Haven to see Chrystal in her opera, The Nightingale. I've gone up a few times, and she's come to the city several times as well. (Make sure you hound her to update us on her life! She has some interesting things to share!!)

Here's us. . . six years after our first meeting. . . five after we roomed together as freshmen!

Yay! I'm so glad we've kept in touch and stayed friends! All of us!! :)

Choir for Cougars

So I sang "Steal me Sweet Thief" in Vocal Solo Class (Northwesterns equivilent of Voice Seminar but the teachers don't comment) today. To this day I can't think of that song without thinking of Abby when she did it for acting class! So Abby that one goes out to you! People are not a fan of that song at this school so I will probably not sing it ever again...but alas, I like it and will always think of Abby pretending to iron Colins jacket...or something like that:)

I also wanted to report that I completely pulled a Caitlyn today in Choir. Choir is horrible at Northwestern...I mean I suppose if you liked choir you wouldn't agree, but thats not, nor has it ever been me. The fact that I'm required to take it for one year infuriates me, even though I'm sure there are worse fates.

I'm in the community choir which is the lowest of the low. I specifically asked for this choir so

A. i could get away with not singing and

B. not have to go to choir three days a week.

The community choir meets every Monday from 7-9:30 and consists of not only all the awkward big non choir voices of the school but also community volunteer members....pure hell on earth I assure you (imagine a low budget church choir x 10). I've been trying to pre-game with $2 margaritas from Chili's before going and last Monday I was pretty tipsy and decided to write some erotic poetry interspersed with lyrics we were singing, one of my favorite verses was:

In my swollen busom

grant me peace

Your hand gently cups my soft flesh
Thumbs circle my tight rosey buds

Kyrie e eleison

But I digress...Today (possibly due to the strange pollens of Chicago) I was exhausted and could barely keep my eyes open so I slipped out from my back row seat and went up to the third floor and napped for an hour on the couches before heading down and joining the throng as they took their one break at the 8:30 mark. My friends noticed but the director came up and stood beside me and didn't say a thing. bahaha...remember when i did this in dance, Michelle, because we had pulled an all nighter.. Thankfully this time if the director had called me out I had my excuse all ready. "Why Dr. Harris, I'm so sorry, but I had a date with the Mary Jane":)

mmmmmm toes

One guess as to whose foot that is.

So good news! I am officially singing at the Classical Singer Convention in NYC at the end of May! Then you get to meet with a panel and they tell you what they think, etc. AAAAND I'm signed up for a bunch of other cool stuff including a one-on-one where you talk about the obstacles of your career. Mini therapy! YAY

Ew

I sang yesterday and must have pushed and now my voice is tired and I'm pissed. That is all.

photoooosss

what the shit?

last day of acting

graduation

I just realized I didn't think I had these posted on fb so, enjoyyyy. (also if anyone figures video out, i have a really good one from the last day of acting. it involves olivia and abby in each other's crotches. that's all i'm sayin..)

My new thing is going to be to randmly post pics

technical issues

how do you post video?

also if you go to "settings" and "permissions" you can add your private email address as an "author" so that we can all post under our own email addresses and we won't have to write our names in the title. i also think this is a really good idea because after we all add ourselves as authors we can privatize the blog so that only us - class of 08 can read what we're writing.

NASHIIIIIIII

Hello Lovely People,

Let me start by saying - this is a really cool idea. Kinda of like an e-"sisterhood of the traveling pants" if you will. except no pants.

It is so good to read up on what you guys are doing! I can't believe it has been 2 years since graduation. Things have changed so much for all of us... Has anyone been back to visit the mellon? I keep thinking I'll go, but my plans keep getting thwarted.

So what's up with me? Well... I am currently on hiatus from living in New York City until June - I've been in Orlando, Florida for almost two months and am staying another month. The reason is that my body decided to fail me miserably. I was having a lot of unidentifiable health problems (which really had started back in college - I always had stomach issues, sinus issues etc... and was treated for ulcers and a whole bunch of other stuff.)

Well they finally figured out what it was - I have Crohn's disease - which for those of you who aren't familiar is an auto-immue disorder (basically my immune system doesn't recognize my own cells in my gi tract and proceeds to ferociously attack). The suck part is that by the time they figured out what the hell was wrong with me - I was so deep in shit that I had to spend the better part of December - February in the hospital with all kinds of infections - culminating in "colorectal surgery" where they took out about half a foot of my small intestines and left me a nice little scar down my abdomen.

Needless to say, I decided to take a few months to live at home with my parents and recover from the craziness that has been my life.  It hasn't been all bad though - I've learned a lot about myself - found strength I never knew I had, and I've learned to really appreciate my family and my friends who have been an undeniable and constant source of grace and love for me. I've also had to clean up my act and cut back on the drinking, stop smoking and generally address my usual self destructive behavior. I now run 5 times a week and do yoga twice a week. my ass is quite firm.

I'm loving my time here in Florida. I got to see caitlyn for a week during our mutual friend's bridal shower, (please ask her about how her poo ended up in someone else's yard next time you talk to her). I'm working at a sushi bar literally next to my house a few days a week, teaching jazz voice lessons, going to local auditions, taking a shakespeare acting class and an improv comedy class, practicing, exercising, writing, and generally getting ready to return to new york. I also booked two shows here for the end of may to showcase what i've been writing to my friends and family in the area so that should be fun.

Musically - I'm still developing my own material. After I left school I stopped singing classically entirely. In fact, I actually don't think I've had a single voice lesson since my senior year of college - which completely baffles me sometimes. I started writing and playing the piano a lot more regularly. Eventually I started open-micing in new york - found musicians who were into what I was doing, put a band together and I've been gigging steadily in new york (or whatever random city i'm visiting) since last may. Some of the highlights of my career so far have to be...

-recording my demo (you can hear most of it on www.myspace.com/nishaasnani)
-finding back up singers - seriously the coolest thing
-working with a dance company who choreograph to my original music - they actually use my stuff at a lot of showcases and we just got invited to play in scotland as part of a dance festival next summer (sweet)
-singing a christmas series at the plaza hotel this past holiday season (in between hospitalizations...)
- singing at yankee stadium during the world series
- randomly being recognized on the subway by people who had come to my shows
-writing/practicing/loving life as a struggling musician.

What I really SUCK at - and maybe you guys can give me some advice on this... is getting my stuff online. I have still not managed to get a website together and just can't seem to get into this whole tweet my life post everything online thing - especially now - when i try to spend as much time as i can outdoors - i just forget that i even have a computer or a facebook account - and i am certainly not making good use of the promotional capabilities of the internet.

As far as my personal life goes - I have not been in a really serious relationship since Ian and I broke up. It was really difficult for me after that - and it's kind of still a sore spot since Ian refuses to talk to me or acknowledge that I exist. (awkward)

What I have found is that I like dating. I think it's a gemini - born in spring thing. I love the beginnings of relationships. I have been having a series of thrilling, totally intense love affairs that always seem to end after a few months and it's actually totally ok with me -  because I can still appreciate them for who they are.
About a week after I got into Orlando, I met this really cute, really sweet guy - Austin. He manages one of my favorite restaurants, and dj's a local radio station. It's really cute when he dedicates songs to me on the radio. I always squeal like an actual 14 year old. We met because we were both playing a "Beatles night" showcase. Things are generally fantastic - he's great company, great physical connection, he makes me laugh a lot so -  we'll see how it goes. This is us like 3 days after we started going out...we're just both a little crazy, and a little crazy about each other. :)

He's so cute.

Anyways - I know that this is a lot of information. Thanks for reading all the way. I really look forward to hearing more from all of you - and keeping in touch regularly so that we don't have to post mini-novella's to fill each other in on what's going on.

I'm sending each and every one of you, individually, a hug and some love today.

Nish

Michelle

Hello, my fair people! I am glad to see that everyone is doing well, and that, at least for now, this is a success!! 

I've been playing around for hours trying to get the comments to work, and finally did. I can't change the template without losing them, though, so it's frustrating! Let me know if any of you computer savvy peeps can figure it out!!! 

So. . . .what is new with me? I am about to graduate from MSM, and honestly, I am counting down the days!! I have a major case of senior-senioritis, and NEED OUT!!  I have loved and improved so much studying with Cynthia Hoffmann, and have been doing some really great rep (Including a Pagliacci duet with Art Miller that Chrystal and Morg got to come see!!). And I've also found a new passion in Russian art song. I've been working on it all year, and my pianist from Russia says I have a Russian soul. I really love it! But overall, this year has led me to the express desire to take a large break from singing for the summer. It may sound odd, but I feel like I love it so much, that I need to get away from it for a small time to be excited to come back. I plan on moving back to the city next year and picking up where I left off. . .whilst also having a real job!! I'm really excited about it, and can't wait for the next chapter to start!

So what shall I be doing in the meantime, you ask?? This summer, I shall be head manager at a POOL in VA!!! It came about all of a sudden, and at just the right time! I'll be working 40-50 hours a week, and teaching swim lessons on top of that! It's one of the company's biggest/most important pools, so it will be a lot of responsibility and possibly some stress. . .but I'll be TAN!! And SUMMERY! I'm so excited! Hopefully there will be some wonderfully attractive male lifeguards or pool-goers to keep me company. Send me positive vibes about that! 

And I agree with Abby, we should have a reunion! Maybe in NYC? It's a place everyone wants to be. . .  :)

Can't wait to hear from everyone else!!!

In response to Abby

Since our comments aren't working............I'll post.

Abby, that is AMAZING that you're kicking so much ass. GO YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Any youtube vids we can watch of you or any sound clips you want to pass on?
And PS a house?! YOU are a grown person!! And I think it's really awesome you're staying another year to do what you need to do.
HAPPINESS!
And PPS. I def want to come take a lesson with Barbara in the future. I'm on a kick where I just want to sing for a million teachers and hear what they have to say. I do recall my past lessons with her being helpful so I'll czech it out.